Who am I?
by animeloverhomura
Summary: This is a bit of a continuation of 'Who are you' What I think Shinichi's perspective might be on who he is.
1. Chapter 1

This is a continuation of my previous one, Who are you? It could be considered a follow up, but from Conan's perspective. I'm going to add in some of my personal opinion on this from my portfolio.

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"Who are you?" That was a question he was asked often. His answer was always, "Edogawa Conan, tantei-san." What did that mean?

That morning Conan had been walking through the police department after a case when he heard to officers mention his name.

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* _flashback_ *

" _So what do you think of him?" One officer said, Conan looked up in curiosity at the conversation that the two were trying-and failing- to be discreet about._

" _Him?"_

" _Edogawa Conan, the kid that the higher ups were talking about. You're in the first division, you said you met him on a case a while ago right?" Hearing his name had instantly gotten Conan's full attention._

" _ **One**_ _case a little while ago? I've met him at like five just this month. It's like a murder can't happen without him being there. I'm almost wanting to believe that Gunma inspector's theory that the kid is cursed, the amount of cases he's at is unreal."_

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Who am I? Edogawa Conan or Kudo Shinichi? He supposed he might just be overreacting, they were the same person in the end. To Hattori Heiji, they were the same. Kudo Shinichi was just as much Hattori's friend as he was when he was Edogawa Conan. But they had not met until after Shinichi became Conan. Would they still be friends if the one Hattori had met had been the egotistic soccer otaku that he had been as Shinichi. Probably, but the question still lingered in the back of his mind. Then there were people who he was completely different for.

Ran Mouri. To Shinichi she was his goddess, his angel, the girl who would always do the right thing and who he had to protect no matter what. As Edogawa Conan he did still protect her, sure. She still meant the world to him. But she treated him as a sibling, to Edogawa Conan she was just as much a mother figure as a friend. Kudo Shinichi would never lie to her, Edogawa Conan was probably the biggest lie she had ever been told.

Kudo Shinichi was famous, popular, but did not have many friends. Sure, he had admirers, people like Sonoko and Ran to be with, but not many actual friends. Edogawa Conan had no admirers, as far as the general public was concerned Edogawa Conan was a perfectly normal 1st grader who just had a habit of getting involved in crimes. He had the other detective boys as friends, he had Haibara as someone who understood him though being in a situation with him that no one else ever had. He only knew those people as Edogawa Conan.

His parents were still the same around him no matter what. They gave the Mouri's money to take care of him, but he had never spent that much time with them in the first place. Honestly, sometimes he felt like he had more of a family with the Mouri's than he did in his big, empty house. Did that mean that he was better off staying as a kid. As Edogawa Conan he had friends and a close family. But as Kudo Shinichi he had Ran, who had been waiting for him and had the police who had been able to trust him no matter what.

He supposed that this feeling could just be a side effect of live two different lives at the same time, but was he just pointlessly desperately clinging on to the life he had as a 16 year old. It would be safer for everyone if they thought Kudo Shinichi was dead, but would he really be able to give up his old life?

"Who, just who are you?" Takagi had asked him that once. He was someone who knew the real him more than almost everyone.

He responded with "Sure, if you want to know I'll tell you. On the other side." He had not really thought about that response when he said it. It was a secret he would keep until death, but who was he living as now? Who would have to be the one to die so that it would be fine for the secret to be revealed. Kudo Shinichi and Edogawa Conan could not exist in the same place forever. Sooner or later one of them was going to have to die. Which life was he not willing to lose. The child with the mind of an adult, or the adult with hopes of a child? His life where he was an unparalleled respected detective who mostly cared about his reputation and the hopes of eventually living a happy life with his girlfriend, or the kid surrounded by friends and allies that fought in a futile attempt to save everyone, but knew that he couldn't.

Who are you?

Who am I? Not a protector or a god, I can be hurt and killed. I have people I care about but can't save everyone. I'm smart but make mistakes, I'm imperfect but don't know my limits. I'm not entirely Kudo Shinichi or Edogawa Conan anymore.

Who am I? I'm just a human.


	2. Chapter 2

This may make Akai a little OOC, but I'm trying. I just think that in private he must at least feel like there are too many names linked to him and lose control.

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Looking into the mirror, Akai Shuichi was finally able to see his real face. Not the face of Subaru Okiya, or even the figurative mask he wore as Moroboshi Dai. No, Akai was able to look into the mirror and see the real side of him that was barely ever present.

Sure, he might have been overreacting. He was still technically the same, his emotions about anyone he knew were the same. But at the same time, they felt so different. He had a different personality for each version of himself.

Moroboshi Dai was cold, ruthless. He killed anyone who got in the way of the organization and was able to work side by side with the world's most cold blooded murderers without breaking a sweat. That was how he got his code name of Rye. He had long black hair and an aura that radiated danger while pretending to be organization member Rye. Then as part of the private life of Moroboshi Dai he only cared about his girlfriend Akemi Miyano.

Akai Shuichi, the apparent truth, was similar. Yet at the same time so different. He still loved Akemi, but also loved his sister, his brother, his colleges. He cared about all of them, the biggest difference between him and Moroboshi Dai. He was the 'silver bullet', the man that the organization feared the most. He was still able to radiate a feeling of danger, but most of the time it was subconscious, and was not the main part of his personality anymore.

Subaru Okiya was barely like the other two at all. He was a bit awkward, but smiled a lot. The nice and intelligent but unsociable graduate student that lived at the Kudo house while the teenage son who lived there was away.

Only similarity was the intelligence of all three, but even that was different between all three. While Dai was a genius surrounded by other dangerous geniuses, Akai was the main genius in a field of people with only a slight bit above average intelligence. However, Akai still had people like Edogawa Conan to talk to, someone he had never known as Moroboshi Dai. Subaru Okiya pretended to just have slightly above average intelligence and a love of mysteries, being an otherwise normal guy.

One main factor was that all three loved Akemi Miyano. Dai had been dating her, Akai had grieved her death and let it change him, while Okiya had to pretend he never met her while risking his life to protect the sister of the girl he loved.

Now of course, he was not able to just go back to another one of his identities. Dai was found out by the only people who knew him, while Akai was presumed dead both by those people and the rest of the world. All that he currently worked to do second-by-second was protect the snarky sister of his girlfriend while also keeping an eye on the genius boy who happened to be the most reckless person on the face of the earth. 'What would be the next best place to hit the organization from?'

Staring at his reflection, he suddenly felt a fit of rage. Bringing his arm up he punched through the mirror, letting stray shards of glass make marks on his fist and arm. 'You am not Akai Shuichi anymore. You have to stop thinking like him. Okiya Subaru would never think like that, don't break your mask. Dai Moroboshi, Rye, Akai Shuichi, Okiya Subaru, honestly you have too many names.'

"What did the poor mirror ever do to you?" Turning around, Akai saw Edogawa Conan, suspected high schooler Kudo Shinichi, looking at him with a concerned expression. Akai turned away, angry at himself for losing control like that.

"Is it the different names and lives?" Conan asked, looking up at Akai with a look that only a person who also existed in different worlds could pull off.

'That's right,' Akai thought, 'His friends like Ran Mouri don't know he's dead yet, he's living his different lives at the exact same time with people on both sides not being aware of the other one.'

"Yeah," he finally admitted, "having trouble keeping my personalities sorted out. Why are you here?"

Conan looked at the ground with a distinct impression of shame, "I almost lost it during school today with everyone treating me like a normal first grader. I do want them to do that, but when I got a call from someone back home it felt a bit suffocating to be juggling different… memories." Causing Akai to remember when before taking off his mask he saw Ran Mouri call Shinichi Kudo.

"I see. Well, I suppose that everyone has a breaking point." Conan looked up at Akai like he could not believe that he of all people had said something like that, "And then, did you come here to spend some time alone?"

"Something like that…" Conan trailed off while looking around at objects a young Shinichi had, leading Akai to believe that Conan was currently trying to separate his experiences into his two lives.

"Well, I suppose that's one of the problems with having too many names." Akai finished.


End file.
